


It's just a dream

by This_ape_writes



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-03
Updated: 2014-11-03
Packaged: 2018-02-24 00:05:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2560691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/This_ape_writes/pseuds/This_ape_writes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I still get nightmares. In fact, I get them so often I should be used to them by now. I'm not. No one ever really gets used to nightmares."--<br/>Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's just a dream

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: cursing inside. I curse in everything I write. Sorry. 
> 
> I'm also not sure when I imagine this to take place. Sometime in season 7 maybe, around Closure? So spoilers up through 7-11.

I'm trying to order pancakes. This is my fifth attempt now but all they keep bringing me is eggs. I now have a table full of every egg recipe known to man but no pancakes. I'm losing patience. 

I see a waiter approaching the table and I wave them over only to see that it's Gary Oldman. He doesn't listen to my order. He ignores that I'm talking at all. He leans over me, picks up a fork, and takes a bite of my huevos rancheros and winks at me. I open my mouth to ask what the hell is going on here when he turns to look at me and then starts screaming. 

Its awful. 

It's a painful scream that rattles through my chest and makes me want to cry. I reach towards him to make him stop and he fades into the dark. 

I jerk awake and realize Gary Oldman isn't screaming. My partner is. I sit up and the water bed beneath me rolls side to side making me sea sick. 

This officially marks every night this week. 

I groan. 

I need to wake him up but on Wednesday when I did I caught an elbow to the eye and as much as I like the movie Rocky, looking like the champ is not one of my life goals. I need to have a hold of him first. I throw the blankets away from me and I roll with all of my effort until I can stand. I glance at the clock beside me. 1:13. Thank god we can sleep in late tomorrow because this isn't turning into a very restful night so far. 

I pad my way across the room, taking extra care not to trip over the massive pile of books that surround us all over the floor and I approach his side of the bed. I flick on the bedside lamp and I sit down next to him. I reach out and I grin at my success when I am able to grab both of his wrists on my first try. I cross his arms over his chest and I pin them down tightly. 

"Mulder. Wake up. Mulder it's me, come on wake up." He doesn't respond right away so I shake him with as much gentleness as I can manage, with my blood pressure and anxiety through the roof at his screaming pain. He sits up and for a few horrible moments his eyes stare right through me as he fights consciousness. I keep talking to him, staring into his eyes as best I can and eventually I can see him focus and the second he recognizes me he collapses against my shoulder. 

My tshirt begins to strangle me from behind as he grabs handfuls of it in an attempt to pull me closer but I don't say anything. I just cradle him against me and start to murmur soft platitudes that must have been hard wired into my brain from when I was a child being comforted by my mother.

"You're safe. It's okay. I've got you." 

"I'm sorry," he mutters and his voice is so rough I wonder just how long he had been screaming before I was able to wake us up. I know for a fact that neither apartment is rented out on either side of us and I wonder if this is why. 

"Don't be sorry. You're ok," I tell him. My hand falls into his hair and I start to run my fingers through it in a way that I hope is soothing. 

"God Scully it was awful," he says as he turns his head to press his entire face into the side of my neck. "They were hurting you." 

"Well that's new," I say as I start to rub his back with my other hand. It's usually his sister. Or himself. Or just abstract painful images. I'm not usually there. 

"I could hear you screaming but I couldn't find you. And it was like I was connected to you because I could feel what they were doing, like every nerve was set on fire and I couldn't save you. I couldn't even FIND you. And god, you just kept screaming and I just oh!" He suddenly sits up and when air hits my shoulder it feels cold from the sudden absence of him and the presence of tears and sweat. His eyes are searching all over my face and wherever he looks his fingertips gently follow. 

"I didn't hit you again did I?" He asks. I reach up to gather up both of his hands and I shake my head as I kiss them. 

"No. Not at all. I'm getting pretty good at this. By next week I'll be a pro," I say and instantly I regret it and want to take it back as his face crumbles at he falls back against me. My restricted airway is back as he grabs me and I sigh and hug him back. "Oh. Mulder. I didn't mean that this is going to keep happening. I'm sorry." 

"No Scully, I'm sorry. You're not sleeping. Asking you to stay over is completely selfish on my part just because I want you close. You should be at your own place. With your own bed. Where crazy people don't wake you up screaming every night."

"First of all Mulder, I'm here because I want to be. Second of all I wouldn't be getting any more sleep if I were at my place because I would be worrying about you, probably all night long. Pacing around my place wondering if you were sleeping ok and I'd have to call you to make sure that you were and if you were slow to pick up the phone I would have to throw on clothes and get in my car and drive all the way over here just to wake you up to tell you ' hey stupid answer your phone' so no. No it's better that I'm here." I end my rant and I can hear him laughing and it's the most beautiful sound I have ever heard in my life. I kiss the side of his head that's not currently mashed into my collar bone and I smile. "Besides," I say. "I like your apartment."

"Why?" He asks, spit out in a tone that says I am stupid and clearly insane. "Your place is bigger, cozier, and it smells so much better." Ok he had me there. But I grin and press my cheek against his head. 

"Yeah. But this apartment is just so perfectly...you. It makes me feel safe. It always has." His hands relax a little bit and I'm able to swallow again. I feel a rush of weariness roll through me. We both need to try and sleep. I start to make a move to turn off the light again but he grabs my shirt with a vengeance and pulls his arms around me tighter.   
"Don't leave yet I just...I need...I..."

"I know," I say, running my palm across the back of his head. "I'm not leaving. I was just turning off the light so I could lay down again," I say. 

"Oh," he says. He groans out his embarrassment and he pulls away from me completely. I can't see myself, to spite the fact that all I would have to do is look up at the ceiling mirror to do so, but I know I look amused. 

"Stop it," I tell him. "You majored in psychology you can't tell me you didn't study trauma like this. You can't be so hard on yourself. I'm here to help you. Let me! You big dork."

I don't give him the chance to respond. I click off the light and crawl back into the ocean bed. I steal my pillow back from the opposite side and the second I lay down his head finds the inside of my shoulder and one of his arms crushes across my chest pleasantly. I shift so I can hug him and he sighs in an overly exaggerated way that I know is just for my benefit. 

He's still shaking like a dog on a car ride to the vet. 

"Please just distract me for a little bit," he says. 

"I'm not singing again," I say. He chuckles. 

"Ask me questions then."

"Mulduuur," I groan. 

"Stupid ones. I don't care. Please." 

Dammit. Him and his please. 

"Fine. Questions. Ok. Alrighty. What was...I don't know, your favorite tv show as a kid?" 

"Really?" He asks. 

"Humor me or I'm going home," I say. 

"Liar," he says. "Ok. favorite TV show as a kid was the Walton's."

"The show with John Boy?" I ask snorting out an incredulous giggle as I do. 

"Yes," he says. 

"That is surprisingly lame," I say and I know he can hear my grin. 

"Oh shut up. They were a happy functional family that I desperately wanted to be a part of and besides I like the theme song," he muttered. 

"That is possibly the cutest damn thing I have ever heard. How precious are you?" I tease. 

"Yeah. Super precious. Ok so what about you? What was your favorite show so I can mock you?" I continue to chuckle and I drop down to kiss his head again. 

"Mission Impossible," I said. 

"Shit. That's cool," he said. 

"I know it is. It was super cool. That's why I liked it," I said. 

"So, follow up question. Is that how you pictured the FBI to be and did that influence your career choice?" He asked. I laughed. 

"Those are two questions not one. And I like to think I made a more logic based choice than that for my career thank you very much but I would be lying if I said it didn't cross my mind. And I might be a little bit disappointed at our lack of gadgets and the fact that we have never once encountered a briefcase filled with a cloud spray that knocks us unconscious."

"That is absolutely what is missing from our job. now I'm disappointed."

"It's your turn," I tell him. "Ask me something." He takes a bit to think of a question and in the silence I note that he's no longer shaking. 

"Favorite curse word," he says. 

"Cunt," I say without thinking. 

"Dana Katherine!" he says with another chuckle as he yawns. His words are starting to slur. Thank god. 

"You asked!"

"I know but that's just... unexpected!" He says. 

"Why? It's fun to say it's under used and it's the only feminine pronoun that has more power than it's masculine counterpart. I call you a dick at work and no one bats and eye. I call you a cunt and people drop coffee cups and gasp. That's power. As a feminist how can it not be my favorite." 

"God that's hot," he says. 

"What's yours?" I ask. 

"Motherfucker," he says. "I don't have any, uh, political reasons like you. I just like it. All the better if you can yell it while you say it."

I smile and try I think of another question. 

"Ok. My turn again. Let me see..." It's late. I'm not creative. I'm about to open my mouth and ask something lame like what breed of dog he thinks he is most like, but he interrupts. 

"Hey Scully?" He says. 

"Hmmm..." I say. 

"I love you," he mutters. Ok I'm wide awake again. Stunned silent but awake. He continues. "And I'm not drugged so you can't brush it off this time. I mean it. I love you." He was trying to kill me. Or make me cry. Or fluster me to death. It was working. 

"You motherfucker," I said. "I'm running on four hours sleep and it's 2 in the morning and you go and say THAT when I can't defend myself or think properly."

"I know," he says. And I can hear him grinning. His whole tone changes and I know he's grinning like an idiot. "But I do. God. I love you so much."

I'm losing my battle with trying not to cry. And I don't know what to say. Or do. Or think. Dammit. I realize that traditionally the correct response is I love you too. 

"Oh my god please tell me you already know that I love you," I sputter out in an awkward panic. 

He's relaxed against me like a human bean bag chair and I hear him yawn. 

"Mmm," he says his tone still grinning. "I had a hunch you might, yeah." He mumbles. "But shhh. I'm almost tired." I roll my eyes and push his hair away from his forehead so I can kiss him right where his temporal bone indents and I sigh. 

"God I love you too, you asshole." We fall asleep and for the first time in weeks we peacefully sleep all the way through the night. Together.


End file.
